


In Weakness

by JazzRaft



Series: In Weakness & In Strength [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2019-04-07 03:32:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14071989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: Cor has no clue how he's supposed to train Prompto.





	In Weakness

Cor’s first thought when he met Prompto was, _Well… I’ve started with worse._

As he began training him though, that thought was becoming more and more dishonest.

Prompto was a scrappy, stick of a thing, standing so straight for his initial inspection that Cor was half-certain he might snap in half at the waist if he so much as poked the kid in the forehead. He was all skin and bones, gangly limbs and tender muscle. He took care of himself though – he wasn’t worrisomely thin nor overweight. But he was unrefined, relatively ordinary, not unlike most of the new recruits Cor was sometimes tasked with initiating into the Crownsguard.

Cor needed to get a little muscle on him, blood him a bit; the standard fare. He fully expected that Prompto could be molded into a good recruit – at least decent enough not to get himself killed the first day out on the line of duty. Cor just needed to whip him into shape, same as the rest.

The Marshal quickly realized that it wasn’t Prompto’s musculature that was going to be the problem.

“Hit me.”

“What? No! I can’t do that…”

“I’m an Imperial assassin that you’ve just seen pull a knife on Councilman Ferrinas on his way to his car. If you don’t hit me _right now_ , Sir Ferrinas is going to bleed out in the parking garage, the Archades district is going to lose a much beloved lord, and the King’s table is going to be missing one of its most supportive chairs on the Council. _Hit me._ ”

This was a new one, even for Cor. He’d learned to expect lessons on how to temper violence _out_ of a recruit, not urge it _into_ them. People often came into the Crownsguard raw with nervous energy. Usually, their first impulse was to hit something. Usually, they were looking for an outlet for some deeply embedded anger at something or another – faulted patriotism, emotional insignificance, traumatically reduced self-confidence; you name it.

Cor had gotten good at training those furies, using them to mold a Crownsguard out of a greenhorn. He’d seen a lot of chips on hunched shoulders, thwarted a lot of revenge fantasies once out in the field, kept a great deal of the downtrodden and the spiteful from running straight into suicide raids; he’d grown accustomed to violent tendencies and he knew how to humble them. He knew how to take that rage and teach it into honor.

He wasn’t nearly as sure of how to plant that seed of anger from scratch.

“Knife’s getting closer,” Cor goaded. “Are you really going to let me take him away from his husband? His kids? Are you really prepared to stand at his funeral, surrounded by those grieving faces, and knowing you could have done something about it?”

Prompto’s lip quivered, and Cor was just about ready to schedule a luncheon with Regis to bemoan his son’s recommendation to put a sniffling child into Crownsguard training.

But the tremble was just a hairline fracture; an innate breach of confidence slipping through the cracks before Prompto clutched down and bridled it. His mouth firmed into a decided grimace. The dewy-eyed horror in his gaze solidified, tempering itself just long enough to reach the resolve he needed to dart forward and punch.

_At last. But too late._

Cor listed to the side. Prompto went careening into the dust.

“Well, you’ve distracted me long enough that if Sir Ferrinas was feeling brave he could try and disarm me. But he’s still put in critical condition at Archades General, being overseen by the best care the district’s taxes can pay for. I got away, the Council’s in turmoil, and you’ve either been discharged or demoted. The former, if Clarus is bound to have his way.”

Not even with the mockery did Prompto get angry. He didn’t punch the dirt or lash back or justify his failure with a “if I could just” or a “well, if you hadn’t” or a “I just need another chance.” Cor had heard a chocobo ranch’s weight in shit of excuses.

But Prompto just got up, ducked his head, and simply said, “I’ll be better.”

Rarely, if ever, had Cor heard that.

\---

Prompto’s greatest weakness was his mercy.

It was hard for him to hurt people. For the first few months of training – and Cor took it upon himself to work with him, if not by the insistence of Noct’s pout, then by the fact that any other trainer wouldn’t have the patience for him – Prompto would seize up the instant he realized that all he needed to win a spar was to deliver the “killing blow.” Every time, that moment of hesitation got _him_ “killed” instead.

Outside of combat, Cor admired him for that compulsion. Prompto wasn’t driven by his carnal impulses, but his kinder ones. He sidled up to his sparring partner after a match with an ice-pack, a water bottle, and a compliment to the other’s ability, often self-deprecating to himself. He was the first on the scene with an emergency kit if a senior Crownsguard barked for help over the injured body of a trainee that failed to land a correct kick. He jumped to his feet the instant he noticed someone struggling with a heavy load – moving exercise equipment, delivering file boxes, exchanging cleaning supplies.

He was a good person.

But good people didn’t make great Crownsguard.

“I would lay down my life for Noct,” Prompto assured him one day, catching his breath on the benches from another match he’d failed to win. “If it was him or me, I’d throw myself in front of a bullet if I had to!”

“There’s no question about that,” Cor agreed. “But the core principle of the Crownsguard is right there in the name. _Guard_ the Crown. That means seeing and stopping the danger before even the King knows he’s in it. It’s about saving him in time, not getting there too late. That goes for the both of you. You want to die for your King, but only when there’s no other choice. And in all of your scenarios, you’ve been choosing to die when you have the option to live and guard the King another day. All you have to do is fight back.”

Prompto scraped at the label around his water bottle, watching his peers tackle each other down to the mats. Some of them were still very rough around the edges, roaring as raggedly as the paper edges he was picking at when they landed a practiced blow. Short of putting Prompto up against an MT assassin, Cor doubted he could inspire the same ferocity out of him. Not against one of his comrades.

The next day, Cor had nearly decided to terminate Prompto’s training as an official member of the Crownsguard to instead serve Noctis as casual a capacity as he had up until. It’d probably get him killed, and that left a sour taste in Cor’s mouth if he thought about it for too long, but he was at his wit’s end trying to get the kid onto the level he needed to be to wear the mantle of Crownsguard.

He never did rejections in person. Usually he just signed his approval for a subordinate to do the discharging if a recruit didn’t make the cut. Usually he didn’t train a cadet personally, if not because he was duty-bound elsewhere from the Citadel, if because – if Regis was to be believed – he got “too attached, too easily.” Suffice it to say, he was steeling himself for a tough conversation at the end of this session. Tougher still when he saw how eager the kid’s smile was.

“Okay! I’ve totally got this today! I promise.”

Cor marked his skepticism with a raised brow. Prompto wasn’t deterred, instead puffing up his chest and bouncing out his knees and readying his fists to defend the hypothetical noble. Cor tried to convince himself that it wasn’t favoritism that wanted the kid to succeed.

He put forward the scenario – a visiting dignitary from Accordo, her continental breakfast at the Leville ruined by a terrorist holding her at gunpoint. He even allowed Prompto the upper hand – the assailant didn’t yet know that a Crownsguard was present, Prompto was in civvies at the corner table so as to catch any would-be attackers off-guard.

Prompto was actually very good at stealth. He had a light step and was quick to the draw – figuratively and literally; they’d recently discovered that he was most adept at firearms – as well as he was unassuming and small enough not to seem a threat to the enemy. Disarming the terrorist wouldn’t be a problem for him. Separating the dignitary from their grasp wouldn’t be a problem for him, either. It was what he did with the terrorist when he had him in his grasp wherein the issue lay. Most enemies would not show him the same mercy that he was intent on showing them.

Cor was expecting the usual. He expected Prompto to crawl in close like he had taught him to, get him in a headlock first to try and choke him unconscious and bring him in for questioning before realizing that he was going to put up more of a fight. He would play that he would rather die than be taken prisoner by Lucis, and if Prompto gave him the choice, he would take both him, the dignitary, and anyone else unfortunate enough to be in the way of his bullet with him.

To his surprise, Prompto didn’t come in close like he’d been trained to do. Instead, he put some distance between them, staying in Cor’s blind spot, and just when he thought he was clear to pull the trigger on his imaginary hostage, he felt a sharp pang against the back of his head.

“Headshot!” Prompto crowed. “You’re dead.”

Cor rubbed the back of his head where the blank had bounced off, turning to scrutinize Prompto and the practice gun he was getting used to. Prompto smiled, and his voice was excited at achieving the gold, but there was no pride to his eyes for taking a hypothetical life. Cor wasn’t sure how he could criticize him for that. Before he could try, Prompto spoke.

“I know, I know. There might be situations where I don’t have this.” He spun the revolver in his hand, giving his fingers something to do – a nervous tick. “And if that ever happens, I won’t hesitate to do what I have to save Noct or the King or anyone. But, um… I’m not like…” His eyes skittered to Cor’s face, then back down again. “I can’t watch the life drain out of a person’s eyes up close like that. From a distance… it’s not perfect, but it’s the best I can do. Is that enough?”

Cor honestly couldn’t tell him. Despite how rigorous the training was, despite covering every possible scenario that had been encountered in the past or could possibly be encountered in the future, there was just no predicting what could happen in the field. There were no assurances that one way was the best way to survive. There was no way to be sure that everyone would make it out alive whether a Crownsguard put himself in the line of fire or not.

Sometimes, nothing was enough. But the fact that Prompto was willing to compromise with himself, willing to take the shot and try to preserve his soul, knowing that his mercy was both weakness and strength and he had to learn to live with that duality…

Cor placed a hand on Prompto’s shoulder.

“It’s better.”

**Author's Note:**

> also posted over [here](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/170983897232/your-fics-never-fail-to-brighten-my-day-youre-an)


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